Английская Википедия:Empire Theatre, Sydney

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Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates The Empire Theatre is a former theatre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was a live music venue for a few years before 1929, when it became a cinema. Around 1940 it had a dual role and by 1950 it was hosting various kinds of stage shows, increasingly musicals, and was finally destroyed by fire in the early 1960s.

History

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Файл:Empire Theatre sketch.png
Facade, Empire Theatre
Файл:"Sunny" audience, Empire Theatre, Sydney, 1927 - by Sam Hood (3273873640).jpg
Empire Theatre interior, 1927. The audience were there for the musical comedy Sunny. Photo by Sam Hood.

The theatre was designed by Kaberry and Chard,[1][2] and built by R. P. Blundell as a music hall for a syndicate led by leading bookmaker Rafe Naylor.[3] The site was a Шаблон:Convert block on the Bijou Lane corner of Quay Street ("Saunders' Corner"Шаблон:Efn), Railway Square, near the side entrance to Central Station. It opened on 1 May 1927 with the new Jerome Kern musical Sunny, followed by The Student Prince.[4]

By this time stage musicals as public entertainment had been largely usurped by "talkies" and the theatre was reconfigured as a talking picture house around June 1929.[5] It was one of the few Sydney cinemas independent of the General Theatres Corporation / Fullers' Theatres combination, so showing few "first release" films, until management signed up with RKO, and with Paramount Pictures, who already had an arrangement with Prince Edward Theatre.[6]

During World War II, the Empire again hosted live performances, mounted by the A.I.F. Entertainment Unit[7][8] interspersed with regular movie programmes.

From 1950 the Empire was used by "The Firm" of J. C. Williamson's for minor attractions: "The Great Franquin" (a stage hypnotist),[9] a season of Gilbert and Sullivan favorites,[10] — and ballet performances, hosting a three-week season of the National Ballet Company of Melbourne, which included the world premiere of Corroboree, with its composer John Antill conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.[11] Other ballet companies followed, culminating in the Borovansky Ballet in 1952.[12]

In 1953 "The Firm" announced a major refit and facelift for the old theatre, leading to calls (around the time of the Coronation of Elizabeth II) for it to be renamed "Her Majesty's Theatre".[13] The suggestion was taken up much later, when the musical My Fair Lady was being staged there.Шаблон:When

The building was destroyed by fire in the early 1960s.Шаблон:Cn

References

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